


Beyond the Grave

by Neminem



Category: Unable are the Loved to Die - Emily Dickinson
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:08:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27944318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neminem/pseuds/Neminem
Summary: I knew I loved a girl. I knew that girl loved me back. I knew the sound of her laugh and how it carried me home. I knew that tears can be glad. I knew that she was going to die young. And I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. Now I know where she is buried and I visit everyday and place a letter by her grave. Sometimes she even writes me back.A romance crammed with riddles, death, and love that continues far Beyond the Grave.
Relationships: Wren/Sparrow
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

I am Sparrow. Just a woman with a story I feel should be told in a short time. So here I sit and I write. I write until my fingers bleed and then I write some more. I’ll write until I’m finished and the papers are bundled in twine. They are to be fetched to the printer and printed. Then I won’t sit down until I’ve sold each one. I’m not in it for the profit. I might not even keep the money. Though it would be of good economy to do so. I only will do such a thing as this to requite Wren and her life. For so many days she was recognized as an individual with no wits. I know she had wits, she was overburdened with wits. It was her spirit that was so striking, so striking indeed, that it made her seem out of her head. I need to enlighten the people with her story. I will tell it in letters. The ones following the wake of her death. I was fifty-five at the time. She was buried on Tanglier St, in Therams, MayflowerState. She passed on May 15, 1830 at 6 pm. I remember because there was much talk of a nasty fog that blew in that day from Bosont, a small town on the shoreline. I did not see her die but I heard a fly buzz sometime around six o’clock in the evening. She had been suffering from a disease of darkness in her Bowman’s capsule. Her family had been preparing for her inevitable demise for 3 months prior to her death. I can tell you she wore every colour on her dress for the funeral. I had prepared her body for the burial so I knew the fine quality of her clothing. I also picked some hollyhocks from her zealous garden, which she held in her cold grasp. She had planned her funeral before she climbed the golden staircase. Not many folks showed, that was her wish. She looked so small in her pine coffin, nevertheless so fair and bewitching. Her eager face captivated me as if she aspired to have departed all her life. The funeral was fetching and lovely. She would have loved to see it. The first of the letters begins six months after her expiration. It goes as follows:

Dear Beloved, 12/2/1880

I find your touch lingers on my shoulder like my skin wears your ghost. Losing you and all you were furls my hands into knots. They seek sweet skin, they are wont to you but will throw themselves at anything. I pray you did not suffer, laying so still and cold on that mattress we put ourselves together on. Your sister bears no grace to us and how we must have looked. She knew of the tremors of the heart that throngs through us. I catch myself laughing goodheartedly at her first spot at our foolish antics. I can tell you now, with solid certainty and a thick nose and glistening eyes, that Immortality is indeed not a thing. For when I looked upon your vacant flesh, there breathed no breath from your pale lips. No beat from your tender Heart rang out. I cast my gaze at your cold hands that issued no sweet words from their fingertips. I vainly checked your feet, alas no footsteps grew beneath them. “Denominated Death”. This was indeed where you would live, this grave you occupy. To tell you the truth, I did believe you might be Immortal, foolishly. You talked it around so blatantly, I soon fell ill to you and your tall words. Same as when you said you shared an intimacy with me. I was astounded with your bold words. To think, two capable, well bred, economic women carry a torch for one another! This too, you talked often of, and I had no choice, but to indulge in your tomfoolery. I did love you though and I found your company to be simple and wholesome. We grew to be good soulmates. Course, we couldn’t show ourselves to society. The judgement would have made us take leave with haste! So we hid it. But the secrecy made the love much more enticing. Did it not? Oh I wish I were next to thee to hear your sweet reply. Please visit me in yonder times. In dreams or memories. Your absence fogs my mind. I have a reminder here, reminding me of the flowers. I shan’t bother with the daisies then? It looks to be about winter soon. Should I put a sheet over them? I wouldn’t want my deceased lover to leave her flowers to a girl that cannot grow a thing! I find it holds me from you, this doubt that you’re truly gone. I feel you aren’t and that brings me both shame and freedom. I cannot see the appeal of Death some days. Though I understand his reputation lies on taking souls. I wish you were here and we would converse on the subject. Now I’ll just have to speculate your response. It would look something much like this, I think, “My sweetest friend, I picture you there in your home, lost without my touch. It is inconsiderate of you to do so. You know how mad I get when you sit ill and somber. Your face a tempest, rolling about in the sea. Come now don’t fret of my questionable return.” Does that sound about right, my wren? Well then, if I must, I shall be off.

I love thee, Truly -

Though thee cannot love me-

I choose to do so Anyway

Missing thy simple company-

Sitting by the Apple Tree

And watching the birds go by.

Your Sparrow


	2. Chapter 2

Now this idea of writing to my darling came to me in the most unlikely of ways. I went out to the post office with an intention of purchasing three stamps and an envelope. I went in and the gentleman behind the counter carried out the transaction. As I turn to leave, he calls me back and asks if I was able to take a letter to my Wren. He must have known we knew each other. I told him of her passing and his face got all sorry-like. He told me to take the letter anyway so I could give it to her brother and he could figure what to do with it. I obliged and headed to her brother's house. As I neared the gate to Wren’s brother’s manor, a wren flew onto my shoulder carrying a lily for her nest. I startled and away flew your letter. I rushed to look for it. It felt like the letter was you. As if, I was out with lanterns, looking for you. Feeling it was my duty to return it to its late owner’s brood. Alas, no luck had come out with me that night. I gathered my sanity or what was left of it, fragments still flailed in this insane world you left behind. I returned home where my husband awaited my presence. He was worried where I had been off to. I assured him I was fine and retired to my bedroom leaving the maid to tend to the cooking. I found myself tired and ill-minded of things that were not to be ill-minded about. I readied myself for sleep, clambered into the sheets, and fell into a deep slumber. When I arose from the arms of Morpheus, I found I had been walking in my unconscious state. I was now at Wren’s grave and there on the new grass lay her letter. I was astounded and rendered impudent. My hand shook as I bent down to retrieve it. I was unsure of its authenticity. I smelled it cautiously, it smelled like glue and was damp. I considered it for a while, then accepted it. I realized I was dressed in my nightgown and my hair was wet and matted. I took a small road home and when carriages came ahead of me, I hid myself within the trees. I got home safely and proceeded to my husband’s study where I shut the door and seated myself at his pine desk. There I examined the letter. I still had reservations about its soundness but I was not wont to theft of my deceased lover. The overwhelming dubiety of the letter finding its way to its master then me waking beside it pressured my hand to snatch it rather roughly and tear it open. I sat horrified at my actions. Considering myself as good as any criminal, I saw it was done though and set about reading it’s contents. It read as follows:

Dear Miss Wren,

I heard you are of bad health. Such a shame as I was fixing to marry you. I cannot see there being any condolences to this as you are smitten with someone else anyhow. Though if thee wishes for me to refer my doctor to you and you would send off this other beau of yours, I would be most graciously honoured. I would be far more suited to your needs as I make the income of a man who works in oil. I am the richest man in Mayflowerstate and you are the prettiest woman. You cannot cook though I would find a maid befitting to you and you could become my entertainer in the evening. We would do away with your nasty habit of poetry and you will come to like being free of it. This is a well thought out notion and I’d like to see you think so as well. I have decided to make you my wife and make you wealthy, is there no better option that satisfies you? Reply post haste for I am waiting for your reply by the hour.

Respectfully Yours,

Mors

I did not know this Mors fellow but he did not seem the type of person that Wren admired. She was fond of writers and men who write books full of Words and what they mean. Men like the writer of this letter, were not Worth her time. She liked riddles and wordplay. She liked to make you think you see things that weren’t there. She was partial to capital letters and hidden clues. Things that led up to a bigger thing that propped your mind open to let a breeze inside. She Enjoyed Waking up And Looking for things in Nature that she Deemed spectacular. She was bright and always wore white. You would never see her in “Black Lace”. She was living free and that is the thing she needed to be. I was inspired by her and I found myself enlightened by Mors to write and create something she would find admirable. I took a pen from the sill of the pine desk and a sheaf of paper from the compartment in the desk. I set about penning my rough draft of the first letter to her.


	3. Chapter 3

I felt speaking to her was shelter. The words I wished to say poured out of the nib of my pen and flew onto the pages with great speed. I found myself tired after what seemed like hours. I gathered the stack of paper and started to correct my mistakes. Sometime during my fixed writing, Maggie, our maid came by with a plate of lunch that I declined brashly. Too embedded in my work I wrote until well after midnight when my husband came to collect me for bed. I reluctantly abided by his gentle probings. I received little sleep for my efforts. As soon as my eyelids flew heavenbound, I leapt from the twisted sheets and flew to the study where I went to continue my penning. This continued for several days until I finally found I was at ease with my letter and sealed it in an envelope. I put two stamps on it, one with a Feather and one with a Frog. I rode my bicycle to her grave and I placed it on the swelling of the ground. I gave one last glance to it as I peddled away. I Afforded a return to her grave Day by Day. Sometimes bringing Drams of coffee with me. I’d sit against the black iron fence that surrounded her grave and I’d wait for something big to happen. It was so startling to live without her, I gave little thought to anything else for my time was Consumed with her. Without her, I was an injured Deer and my bounds were high and far. Then one day, she gave me a sign. A Robin was wounded near her grave. I saw its nest and Helped him onto it. I moved to leave when my eye caught a glimpse of a daisy in the robin’s nest. I took it meant she was watching me and decided to let me know so. I hoorayed and took off to home on foot, leaving the bicycle behind. I took the time every week to write a good amount to her. I liked to think that she was out there somewhere beyond the grave, reading my letters and feeling she was home. That gladdened my heart some. So I took it to be that I was the only one apposite to see to it that the job was completed. My husband saw little of me as I spent most of my hours in his study. He did not mind me using it for he was not prone to using it himself. I left the room only when my body pestered me to do so. My hand grew stiff and painful, my eyes blurred and weakened. I was content though. I was speaking to a woman who died of beauty. My only love in life, my home. I found the pages filled with words after little time. There was so much to say to her. I did not own the time to speak my thoughts to her when she was in front of me. Her death broke the dam and the water promptly ran. Here is a misleadingly unhappy seeming letter that I composed during this pleasant time:  
Dearest Wren, 1/19/1831

It is sunny here to-day. The sun asks for you and I have no answer to provide except bitter tears. The sun dries them with her gentle rays and hides her blushing cheek in the cotton clouds around her. She did not want to sadden me, I think. I feel no ill will towards her. I hope joy occupies your spirit. Your absence bores into my heart like a surgeon’s blade. Life, the culprit, plays with my mind like small boys and their hoops and paddles. Left and right I swerve, Life strikes me with the paddle and my already brisk pace quickens. I fear my smile is trapped in canyon deep frown lines. Shall it be released soon? My dreams are of you and your quirky disposition. The way Thomas grinned at you when you looked at him brings more tears to my eyes. He never grinned that way with me. I don’t mind tho, he loved you and that did not bother me at all. Mopsy couldn’t stand you no matter how I tried to make her. She was stubborn like her father in that regard. Edison loved you from a distance. I think your brazen disposition frightened him a bit! He told me after we lost you he ended his letters, “With love for all and a lot for yourself - your Prodigal.” I find that amusing as all his “riches” came from you. He was broken when you left us. His fellow mates grew worrisome for him and wondered if he would overcome his loss. He did of course and now he tends to me, his heartbroken mother. It is a sweet thing of him to do. My husband misses you as well. He mutters your name in his sleep. I cannot look at gingerbread the same as when you grazed the earth. That was the first thing we baked together, remember? I still have the “window basket”. The cousins talk about you often. They speak of things they did with you that I have never heard of! You, reclining in the arms of a man with no attempt at concealment! My hand shakes with the telling of this improper endeavor. Were you ashamed afterwards? I dearly hope you were! I wouldn’t want to arrive at the pearly gates and not see you there as well. Supper is boiling and I must be off to tend to the roast. 

The Robin lays her baby blue eggs  
Upon the teapot lid  
To shoo her ‘way would be rude  
Tho shoo is what I did

She flies elsewhere  
And I am left to her four small eggs  
Which sit alone on bits of straw  
So of her brisk return I beg

Three solid days pass on from then  
That fateful day she left  
The cat came prowling accompanied by hunger   
Tho I suppose it were for the best.

Your Sparrow


	4. Chapter 4

I took frequent visits to the general store for my paper. Paper was 3 dollars for a ream and 25 cents for a simple piece. My husband owned a Law firm so we did not mind the quarters and pennies that were used for little things like that. I saw that Wren lived comfortably in her pine house. Replenishing the daisies daily so they did not wilt or grow spots on their petals. My husband insisted I take the carriage there and back. He said he was afraid I would freeze to death or some repugnant man would come and make away with me. He was a man of drama, much like his sister whom I got along candidly with. I abided by his rules. Taking the carriage meant I could talk to our coachman who was a man of simple repose. I enjoyed our conversations for they gave me thoughts other than my own. My daily life became a perennial nest of Wren which gave little expanse to other notions. My health declined slightly. I was human with limited capabilities, I had been trying to exceed those limitations rendering me dimwitted and slow. I took to laying down often for my brain heated and became ill often. I still went to see Wren though I did it without stressing myself. I carried a little flask of whiskey with me for my headaches. The hard swigs counter struck the pain that drove through my brow. As you know this ailment angered me. I did not like to be still and weak. I longed to sit out with my friends and tend to my needlepoint or busy my hands in the kitchen. Alas, my body did not permit me to do so. My tears grew exceedingly more bitter. I had lost the love of my life and now I have lost myself. Maggie came by more frequently taking my chores on as hers. My anger burst forth and I struck her with a cake pan. She was affronted with me and took leave which angered my husband. He locked the study doors and refused entrance to me despite my bestial howls which issued from my lungs in great loud wails. He swelled in annoyance at my loud shrieking and took hold of me and hit me repeatedly. After many thrashings across my back and face, I ceased to move. Satisfied, my husband stepped around me and set out for a lawyers meeting that took place at a train station in Bosont. I layed in the pine doorway of the study and drew in deep breaths, trying to regain awareness of my dark and savage surroundings. He was gone but the time he would return remained unknown. I checked my bones for signs of breaking. My ribs were hurt quite badly. I held my breath as I tried to raise myself to standing. I stumbled and fell back down. I tried again and failed once more. I decided to stay and wait out the meeting and address the brutal beating with him. I crouched, leaning against the pine door heavily. One eye was swollen shut, the other was blurred by blood that ran from a gash made by his wedding ring. Our wedding ring. My _husband_ just struck me. He then fled and went about his daily business as if he had not done such a spiteful thing to his wife! 

***

My husband returned home and shut the door roughly, startling me awake. I expected him to rush to me and explain himself in an apologetic manner. He did not do so. Instead he stole away into our bedroom, stepping over me, to set his items down and lock the door. He locked me out! Of my own sleeping quarters. He locked me out. The thought flew through my mind, a frantic bird frantically searching for a way out of this broken prison. I saw I had no choice but to make a scene in order to attract people to the house. I started screaming, louder than before. I pounded my fists into the pine door. Surprisingly, my husband made no move to stop my hurling about. I made much noise, nothing happened. Then, a cat appeared disgruntled by my feet. It was one of my husband’s sisters, Vinnie’s, cats. She lived down a ways along the road. I decided it was my savior. I took a piece of parchment from my hip pocket which I keep if ever I find I have something to say to Wren. I take a strand from my hair and lay it aside. I take a splinter from the pine door and lay that aside as well. Finally, I take the splinter, dip it into the blood from the gash on my forehead and scratch HELP ME - SPARROW on the parchment. Securing it to the cat’s tail with the hair where Vinnie is bound to notice, I then sent it off in hope that it would find its way to her in time.


	5. Chapter 5

I lay in the doorsill for many hours. My husband’s cadaverous door did not open once but I did not mind his swift silence. I was fearful of him and his vapid temper. I decided to pen another letter to my dearest in my mind to pass the time. 

Dearest Wren, 6/12/1831  
I worry for my safety. Your brother has gone mad. Mad indeed. I pray I may still own the hands to write to you when I am out of the woods on this one. I seek refuge from the man you call your “Master”, though I’m sure I will not find any there. You see, I think he does not admire the way I care for you. Instead, it’s as though he resents me for that very thing. Perhaps he fears your love can not spread farther than my feet? As though I hold back the ocean, the ocean of your adoration, with my mortality. That is very silly of course. I am merely a woman with values. I cannot defy death, it isn’t in my nature to do such a wicked thing as that. It would be crude of me, would it not? To… take away the ability to take my soul from the man who brought me you? Blasphemy. I won’t do such a wicked thing. I cannot, it would cost me you. I must leave now, my mind is tugging at my sanity once more and I must retrieve it before it troubles me for good.

No poem to-day.

Your Sparrow

***

Many hours picked their cotton and I grew hungry and tired so I decided sleep was better than doing nothing. I was awakened by a timid knocking on the front door. I made for getting up but then a jolt of solid pain hurried at me and drew back the memories of the prior instance. I settled for hollering again. Yelling in the indefinite direction of the unviewable entrance, I heard a key piffle at the lock. Startled, I silented myself quick. Until I remembered Vinnie was given a copy of the key in a sudden case of dire need. I thanked the lord for my forward thinking as I heard her fumble open the door. At last she found its tricky turn and yawned it open. I unfastened my locked jaw and went about to call out once more, yet found my mouth was wilted. Instead I took my fist against the wall roughly. She heard the noise and hastened towards me. “Oh, Sparrow!”She started at my crumpled state and flew to my blood mottled side. Clutching my torso, she fretted.“Oh, are you alright?” Her eyes were fitted with affrighted tears. I grunted,“I am sure I would surpass my unwell state if you would be so kind to remove yourself from my broken ribs” She absconded from my side in a fevered way giving me some breath back to my distorted lungs. “Better?” She wrung her hands, febrile like. “Very much so, thank you”, I sighed, still discomfited from the pressure. She was small but had the grip of a coal miner, which is to say, the woman could latch on quite decently enough. I remembered my tormentor in the room next to me and surmised a plan to see him off. I told Vinnie the dilemma and she decided it best she peer in to see his state of demeanor. I agreed. She stood quietly and tapped on his door, “Austin?” she murmured shakily, “Austin, are you quite alright in there?” There came no response from the sallow door. I assumed her quietude was too feeble to wake him if he was undergoing sleep and told her so. She nodded and rapped a bit harder. I knew she dreaded his response and intended on arousing him prudently. Understandably so, though I was not willing to wait for her to muss up the firmness required. Knowing her fair disposition I saw this turning into an hour long venture. I said again to her to commit to the task and become as disorderly as this task sees fit. She realized her fate and in her eyes I saw her accept its consequences. She turned to the pallid door and took in a breath that seemed fit for gods. I wondered how she fit it all in her small chest. She then shouted so loud, the church bells questioned their worth. “Austin! You reveal yourself this very minute, or I see no other choice but to barrel through this bony door and see to it you are buried in an unmarked grave! Do I make myself perfectly clear?” I could not see how any man nor beast on this side of the country could have not been notified of Austin’s ghastly fate by this little woman whether they had ears or were deaf as gingerbread. She waited along with me, both of us on stale breath. Finally, when we could not wait not a moment longer, she took the knob in her tiny hands and turnt it. It was unlocked. She pushed it open.


	6. Chapter 6

We found ourselves at what looked to be the result of a poorly executed suicide. My husband dangled only inches from off the floor, his slipper had fallen halfway off his unsocked foot and it dragged at the ground whenever the rope decided to give itself a spin. His shirt collar was caught in the noose’s loop and it folded up ridiculously. His trousers fell about his waist giving him the look as though, halfway through his venture, he decided to undress himself. His belly showed and his face was amusingly scarlet. His eyes were drooping, it looked as though he was merely taking a nap. It was horribly done, lacking character. I’m sure with only guilt from tormenting me to keep him to conduct such a terribly disappointing demise. A simple apology and signed divorce papers would have sought my forgiveness and would have found it bare and plain. I’m sure he thought he was doing me a favour, though this does much worse than that. Instead this ruins the love for this house I harbored. Such a pity, I was willing to keep it after this little scrape we came up against. Ah well, I suppose I still am pleasing enough to the eye to some men. I’m sure I will marry well off. And anyway, I will always have Wren. Even if she has been dead for as long as I have known her.

The End


End file.
